French bank Societe Generale has been ordered to pay Jérôme Kerviel €450,000 (£350,000) for “wrongful dismissal” despite the fact that the rogue trader lost his former employer almost €5bn ( £3.9bn) in illicit trading bets.

A Paris employment tribunal on Tuesday ruled that the bank had no “serious or real reason” to fire Kerviel, regardless of the fact that he was convicted for the record trading loss.

The award includes €100,000 for unfair dismissal and his €300,000 bonus for 2007. The court, however, rejected Kerviel’s multi-billion euro request for more than the underlying loss at the bank.

"Societe Generale can’t pretend it was not aware of Jerome Kerviel’s fake operations" before his dismissal in January 2008, judge Hugues Cambournac said. The dismissal "didn’t sanction Kerviel’s acts, but its consequences,” he went on.

David Koubbi, Kerviel’s lawyer said the court decision "tore apart the story which Societe Generale has presented from the beginning".

But Arnaud Chaulet, a lawyer representing the bank, said Societe Generale would appeal what he blasted as a “scandalous decision”.

The shock ruling is the latest twist in the saga of the former trader who has taken equal turns as villain and folk hero since he was blamed for causing the record loss at France’s second-largest lender.

In 2014, before serving five months of a three-year prison sentence, he hit the headlines by taking a 1,400km walk from Rome to Paris in a journey he said was inspired by a brief meeting with Pope Francis.

This latest development could have an effect on other pending cases that Kerviel filed in French courts.

His unauthorised trading almost bankrupted SocGen, one of Europe's biggest banks, but his defenders say he has been made a scapegoat.

After his 2014 sentence, he insisted his employers were aware of his actions and called for a retrial saying the initial trial was "rigged".

Kerviel based his bid on testimony given last year by Nathalie Le Roy, a top detective in the case.

She told a court behind closed doors in April 2015 that she felt Societe Generale had "manipulated" her during the investigation in 2008, reportedly telling the court: "I had the feeling, then the certainty that Jerome Kerviel's superiors could not have been unaware" that he was taking wildly risky bets on equity derivatives.

In a bombshell revelation in January, Le Roy presented recordings of a former deputy prosecutor in the case, Chantal de Leiris, saying it was "obvious" that the bank was aware of Kerviel's shady dealings.

"When the subject comes up, anyone even a little bit involved in finance laughs, knowing very well that Societe Generale knew... it's obvious, obvious," says de Leiris in the recordings, made in June 2015.

Societe Generale rejected what it called "pseudo-revelations" and a "new media manipulation" in the case.

France’s court of review and reassessment in March indefinitely delayed a decision on the bid for a retrial. Judges said they want to wait for separate lines of inquiry into the use of forged documents, witness subordination and obtaining a ruling under false pretenses to run their course.

Kerviel was initially ordered to repay to Societe Generale the 4.9 billion euros he lost, but an appeals court overturned the order, arguing that the bank's internal oversight mechanisms had failed.

A civil trial over the amount Kerviel owed Societe Generale is scheduled for June.